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Confusion from the other side of the world Sevana Ohandjanian recalls watching the Cronulla race riots unfold and attempts to understand the shocking events of that day. December 2006
Utter confusion was the first emotion which gripped me when I witnessed what was occurring in Cronulla. I was not in Sydney when the riots occurred. On the contrary, I was in Tehran, Iran, visiting my relatives. As an Australian of Christian-Armenian background, I was considerably shocked to see what was taking place back at home. Had the world gone mad? My first realization that something of significance was occurring in Australia transpired during our regular viewing of the evening news. All of my female cousins, my mother and aunt and I were sitting in my aunt’s living room, eating and watching television. The news was in Farsi, so I could barely understand it. Instead, I absent-mindedly watched the images flash across the screen. The usual reports of death, destruction, global warming and war didn’t even leave an impression on my desensitized news radar. But then the screen flashed on a video image of police trying to contain a massive crowd of shouting people. “Those are Australian police,” I said to my cousin, sitting next to me, “What’s happening?” The screen flashed images of people holding signs reading, “Aussie pride” and “Go Home.” I was dumbfounded. This was happening in Cronulla? In Australia? What had occurred to trigger such outward demonstrations of rage and racism? Was it so significant as to warrant a news story on a television channel on the other side of the world? How strange that I would be in a supposedly fundamental Islamic country, witnessing chaos in a society which prides itself on ‘multiculturalism’ and democracy. Whilst I was safe and sound in Tehran, my friends were caught in the crossfire in Cronulla and across Sydney in general. Not only could I not comprehend this, but my cousins couldn’t make sense of it either. “Why are they fighting with each other? Is it a religious thing, or a racial thing? A gender thing?” they asked. I couldn’t answer their questions, but they clearly couldn’t understand why Muslim and Christian people couldn’t live in harmony, or why Muslim and ethnic women would be attacked. I decided to call upon my friends back in Australia, emailing a few of them to see if they could give me some insight into what was going on. One of my Lebanese friends told me that ‘people had gone crazy’ and that the Australians were against the Lebanese being at the beaches. She added that her parents had absolutely banned her from going to Cronulla beach, fearing that she would end up in the middle of another riot. Another friend, an Australian through and through, recounted to me a story in which two of our Australian male friends had been attacked and beaten up outside the local cinema, by two teenagers of ‘middle-eastern appearance’. She saw a completely different aspect of what was happening, saying that the ‘wogs’ had attacked the ‘Anglos.’ I remained at a loss however, and despite internet searches and reading the news online, I just didn’t get it. This was moreso based in disbelief, than stupidity or misinformation. When I came back to Australia in mid-January 2006, the riots were now set in Australian history, and throughout my first year in university, they were in constant discussion in classrooms. Now looking at the Cronulla riots from the perspective of someone who was not affected by political climate, or the attitudes that may have been present during that summer at Cronulla, I see the lead up to the events at Cronulla last Christmas as the calm before the storm. I remember a gradual lull in 2005, after several court cases had occurred regarding rapes of young ‘Australian’ women, by ‘Men of Middle-Eastern Appearance.’ Middle Eastern men had come to be associated with many of the evils of society: terrorism, sexual assault and drugs. But then it was quiet; no discussion and no public backlash beyond the usual. And suddenly, Cronulla occurred. My female friends are a mixed bag of races; Lebanese, Italian, Maltese, Armenian, Greek, Polish and Australian. Before Cronulla, I never even thought about our racial differences, and I’ve always found racial and religious differences to be more of a subject of interest than a hindrance in a friendship. As an ethnic woman in a ‘multicultural’ society, I have never felt out of the ordinary, singled out or odd in Sydney. Perhaps it’s paranoia, but since Cronulla, I feel odd walking through Bondi, where all the sandy blond-haired folk seem to be burning holes into my back with their eyes. Or the suspicious glances my friends and I receive when we go to the beach, or shopping in the city area. As if we’re a gang preparing to pounce on a defenseless person as we shop for shoes. When did we become a racist society? Because regardless of how you try to sugar coat it, that is what this society has become, one based on the difference between races and religions. Or should I rephrase my question? Have we always been racist and just never noticed? One of the arguments, which supposedly fueled the fire leading up to the riots, was the argument between the treatment of ‘our women’ and ‘their women.’ I find it offensive that we are divided into ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’. When was it decided that we belong to men, or to any group in society? We choose how we represent ourselves, whether that is by claiming we are ethnic, or Muslim, or Christian. At the end of the day, these are only titles used to box us into a particular group, making us easily identifiable. These titles are not completely who we are, although they are undeniably a part of us. We may claim that the racism, and discrimination against women presented during the riots has passed, and that it is all in the open now. But for me, as a woman of ethnic background, I doubt that I will ever feel comfortable and safe in Cronulla again. |
